GUNS, AMERICA, NAZI GERMANY

James W. von Brunn must think that murdering a black Protestant security guard like Stephen T. Johns, as alleged by authorities, was worth taking a few bullets and forcing the estrangement of his 32-year-old son.

Jews and African Americans came together at a church in Fort Washington, Md., to mourn Johns’ death, which left a son without a father, a wife without a husband and a mother without a son.

Johns’s death at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., on June 10 was preceded in less than a week by two other politically-charged killings, the shooting deaths of abortion-physician Dr. George Tiller and a soldier, William Long, 24, outside a recruiting station in Little Rock, Ark., allegedly by Carlos Bledsoe, a Muslim who abhorred military actions in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The question of gun control enters the picture. Advocates for gun control have clamored for stricter laws for years as the bodies piled up. Gun control laws might not have helped to prevent Johns’s death since the alleged murder weapon could not be traced due to its age, at least 70 years. Such laws probably would have helped prevent most murders and injuries caused by firearms.

How hard is it to figure out our problem? Lunatics throughout this country have easy access to firearms. Unstable people have the opportunity to kill at will. As a society, we must be just as crazy to allow it.

That said, what makes America of 2009 any different from Nazi Germany?

There is a distinguishing factor. The German government sponsored terrorism against its own citizens. We tolerate it.

Two days after Johns was fatally injured, two New Yorkers were murdered by gunmen in separate incidents in Brooklyn and the Bronx, according to The New York Post. In North Philadelphia, a 10-minute subway ride from where I live, a 26-year-old police officer and three other men were wounded on Sunday, June 14, when an unknown gunman went on a shooting spree, leaving behind 30 shell casings and projectiles on the ground.

Dwayne Robinson, 23, who was subsequently charged with attempted murder for firing the shots, faces charges in two other assault cases during the past year, according to The Philadelphia Daily News, which cited court records.

The museum murder triggered grousing that right-wing zealots, especially talk-show hosts, created a hostile environment at a time when a left-leaning administration led by a black man begins to pursue a progressive agenda. New York Times columnist Frank Rich noted that Fox News host Bill O’Reilly likened Tiller, the abortion physician, to the Nazis 29 times. An editorial in The Philadelphia Inquirer states, “The election of the first African American president was like lighting the fuse to a string of firecrackers.”

The editorial cites a racist Web site that states, “The president of the United States is really just a puppet in the arms of ZOG (Zionist Occupied Government).” Observes the editorial writer: “Little can be done about such venom, other than to watch those who produce it, hoping to detect a crime.”

A lot can be done. This “venom” is disgusting, but inflammatory language cannot match the force of a bullet. Many lives can probably be saved if we keep guns out of the hands of maniacs who spout all this hatred. Not to mention other criminals.

The gun lobby is reasonable to demand that citizens be allowed to own, possess and carry handguns…under certain conditions. Each gun owner must be trained in firearms use; register their weapons; and be free of criminal convictions and mental instability.

The gun-control movement has endured for decades. It is hard to keep track of all the proposals to stem gun violence and the worthless excuses from the gun lobby. I do not blame the National Rifle Association, which has influenced elected officials to block reforms.

The blame must be pinned on the politicians. They are not obligated to adhere to the NRA’s demands or anyone else. Many politicians receive campaign funds from the gun lobby and others fear losing votes in swing districts or swing states if they challenge the NRA. New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who was named to replace Hillary Clinton, was a darling of the gun lobby while a congresswoman representing the northern, largely backwoods end of the state. If not, she might still be citizen Gillibrand. She liberalized her gun control attitudes after becoming a senator upon recognizing that the state’s voting majority lives within 35 miles of Times Square.

Political pragmatism is understandable, but it costs lives. A June 19 Times article reports that firearms resulted in 60 percent of all murders in New York City each year. That means 150 people in Brooklyn might otherwise have remained alive in 2008.

Mayors and city council members in cities like New York, Philadelphia and Washington plagued by gun violence have been undermined by the courts, Congress, state legislatures and rural states whenever they sought to curtail firearms use.

So let’s get this straight: As the body count rises in big cities and small cities, suburbs and rural areas, Congress refuses to enact sensible legislation, state legislatures override municipal gun-control laws or courts rule against them, and some states permit easy access to guns which end up at crime scenes in northeastern cities.

These politicians and gun-lobby zealots may be offended by any comparison to Hitler, but at least they’re alive. The same cannot be said for thousands of firearms victims.